Brute | Ithaca Beer Company

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Reviews by Alpar:

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A huge thanks to dtmets84 for sending this one over in a trade. One of my top wants for a long time!

Beer review #521, and #95 out of the top 100 I set out to complete a couple years ago.

A: Pours an absolutely crystal clear pale golden yellow with 3 plus fingers width of white colored head. Head hangs around for a while before dissipating down to an outer ring. Leaves effectively zero lacing.

S: At first I get a big fruity aroma like apricots and peach, coupled with a white grape champagne dryness. There is also a citric and lactic tartness, and a subtle musty aroma. I then get barrel notes with oak and a bit of vanilla. Absolutely intoxicating aroma with a great combination of sweetness and tart sourness. I think this is the best aroma I have ever experienced in a sour ale.

T: Aggressive tartness up front, with lots of sour citrus notes. Subtle apple cider vinegar. Sour up front, with fruit flesh like peaches and apricot on the back end, then finishing up with a vanilla sweetness that lingers forever in the aftertaste. There are some funky Brett notes as well, that I can only describes as musty rather than barnyard. The sourness is puckering at times, in a really fantastic way. Wonderful balance; the sweetness on the finish pairing with the tartness up front, and just the perfect amount of funk. So complex, and so delicious.

M/D: There is a liveliness to the mouthfeel, with a huge effervescent bubbly carbonation. It has a medium body, and is drying on the finish. Drinkability is great, as I can't wait to take each sip.

O: Probably my favorite sour/wild ale to date and overall one of the best beers I have ever had.

Many thanks to Jeff for cracking this long time want of mine. A nice displace of gold, orange, and copper pours from the glass with a thick-bubbled and pretty fussy white head topping it off. It sounds and looks volatile, much like you'd expect from a wild ale. Within moments, the head is gone and the slightly hazy brew is left bare, with barely a trace of foam at the edge.

A good grouping of musty lemon and bubblegum-esque Belgian yeast attacks my nostrils up front, slowly followed up by a more acidic, tight cherry-skin sourness. Lacto notes left and right, opening up more and more with time. There's a good barrel presence in this one, too, with plenty of dry oak staves that mix with the mildly funky Brett notes like peanut butter and jelly.

Well, that's quite tart. Even more tart on the tongue than on the nose, I'd say. Brash lemon flesh and voluptuous amounts of pears and sour fruits. The tartness gradient grows from start to finish, and the back-end is downright sour as hell, puckering levels of lactic acid and mild vinegar notes will have your cheeks touching in no time.

Dry and woodsy, though I'm not picking up as much barrel on the palate as I thought I would. The acidity is at a nice level; enough to rip across your taste buds like nothing, but you probably won't be waking up in the middle of the night with a stomach ulcer, either. I love the slightly lactic and oaky, white wine grape finish, with just a hint of vine and tannin. Highly carbonated and effervescent, wafting mouth feel.

Well, well, well. What can I say, besides the fact that I'm disappointed I'll probably never have this beer again. It really is a shame that Ithica's head brewer left and therefore seized the production of this fine wild ale. Hopefully one day we'll see this beer brewed again, even if under a different moniker - it's far too tasty for the recipe to be laid to rest this soon.

The aroma is quite mild and light with a wheaty tart character. Notes of brett, barrel and sweet lemon peel, and hints of unripe bananas. Balanced smell.

The taste is more interesting, though, and more eventful. Nice sweet fruity character up front with some malts shining through. Then, a quite prominent tartness develops with notes of barrel and brett. The finish is dry and effervescent with tart fruity notes. All in all, lovely development of the flavors and aromas in the mouth.

The body is light and the carbonation is very lively. Dry mouthfeel but with some residual smooth sweetness.

Interesting and well done. Nice sparkling character, but gets repetitive after a while.

Pours into my glass a wonderfully clear golden yellow with super active carbonation that forms a cragly mountain of white foam on top of the brew. Aromas of crisp malts bathed in a wall of bright Brett and earthy barnyard accents. Grape and citrus fruit accents run throughout. Lemon zest as well.

First sip is a mix of bright fruit flavors and Brett with a crisp dryness throughout. Grape, citrus, lemon zest moving into a puckering tartness. A touch acidic with a nice barnyard funk kick. Flavors run all over the palate with a lingering tartness. Awesome brew.

Mouthfeel is crisp and refreshing with fast moving carbonation. Goes down easily and is a pleasure to drink. Quite an exemplary wild ale here, not too funky and not too sour. Just packed full of flavor. Well worth seeking out.

Pours the color of hazy dirty lemonade with some snowy white head. The nose is horsey, hay, different fruits (apple, pear, lemon), and some musty odors. Flavors are pretty balanced. Mild sour in the front with som citusy acid in the finish. Very acidic. And tart. Medium body and aggressive carbonation. Dry finish. Pretty damn good for a sour.

Batch # E!0I0, $14.99 @ Cable bev. in Bardonia, NY. Large bottle, capped and plastic corked. Pours hazy yellowy medium amber, the head initially is HUGE, light and fluffy with lots of air in it, nice retention shown, then a light whispy film and collar a slippery thicker lacing. I get some earthy mustyness in the nose and perhaps some light citrus. Yummy wild ale, with more then a moderate sour bite. I get plenty of lime, light barnyard, bracing tartness. Thirst quenching, palate cleansing, thoroughly pleasing AWA.

Pours a yellow straw color with a huge white head. The aroma is very tart with some citrus and oak character. Flavor is very citric and somewhat oaky. Lots of lemon and some tangerine. Some funk but more tart than funky. Highly carbonated and extremely drinkable.

nice tart feel, good level of sourness, a little more than i remember out of the bottle. crisp, refreshing carbonation. dry finish. such an easy drinking sour. i easily wouldve had another had i not been driving.

ive always had lots of love for this beer. an easy sour to get into, yet pleasing to any geek out there. all about the brett with this one.

Received a my second bottle of this in a recent trade with Nonstick. Thanks!

Appearance- Pours a very bright but hazy straw color with a massive three-fingers or so of puffy white head that sticks around quite a bit for a wild ale and leaves some lacing as well. Dies back gradually to a thin sheeting across the top. Looks lovely in the glass.

Smell- Wow, a whole lot of fresh lemon zest on the nose here. It is up front, refreshing, and dominant but with some mild funk showing through towards the end. Just a very mild touch of lactic sourness on the end as well.

Taste- Again, big on lemon flavors. Lots of lemon zest but in no way overdone on the sourness. Some mild funk enters in about mid palate and finishes again on a very mild note of lactic tartness.

Mouthfeel/Drinkability- Mouthfeel is light and well carbonated. Drinkability is fantastic and this makes a great, refreshing warm weather drink. Not the best American Wild Ale I've had but definitely one of the most refreshing and easiest to drink.

Overall, a very solid wild ale with exceptional drinkability. Give it a try if you haven't.

Thanks to mikereaser for hooking me up with a bottle of 2010 Ithaca Brute. This was an excellent beer and easy trade.

Brute is a hazy hay colored beer that fills the glass with it's voluminous head. It looks like lemonade topped with egg foam. The sparkling white fluff stays on the entire time. The beer smells grainy and only faintly sour like ripening lemons. The acidity of Brute is actually less than I thought and was preparing myself for (especially after consuming a Cantillon Lou Pepe Kriek) but was well balanced with the residual sweetness from the grain. The flavor is lemony and crisp with sour apples and a bit of wood-like phenol or tannin from the hops. This is a delicious beer that has good body (The Brewing Network interview with the brewer revealed a 4 Plato finishing gravity) and mouthfeel that looks great in a glass.

When this is released again this year, I'm going to try to get a case.

Pours out a nice darker chardonnayish champagney looking beer. Really pretty. Aroma revealed more of the same aroma aspects from a white wine, but also some virgin oak I would guess with the clean brett existence (not so much funkitude up in this one).

Taste, beautiful, clean, sour. Very similar to The Vine from Cascade, this one is a little more sessionable and less sour, relying on brett more than the aforementioned, which I believe divies up its sourness between a variety of bugs. Acidity kept in check, I don't really care about that one, acidic or not, a beer is not good based upon that factor in my book. Fruit existence is low, might be something like green apple, maybe some light citrus like lemon, but that's about it, definitely no dark fruit. Carbonation was perfect.